Chaperoning 40 Kids Causes Nightmares

The same nightmare has haunted me every night for three weeks. I am on a bus. It pulls into a parking lot. Thirty-nine children pile out. Parents collect the children and zoom off in their cars. I am just about to drive off, too, when one forlorn parent flags me down and says, “Where’s our little Kimberly?”

I look around at the empty parking lot and scratch my head.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Stuck in a snow drift on Silver Mountain, maybe?” That’s when I wake up in a fever sweat.

The clinical name for my condition is Chaperone Anxiety, and I have had a virulent case of it.

For the past three weekends, I was a chaperone for the Spokane Youth Sports Association’s ski lesson program at Silver Mountain. The parent-chaperones (there were five of us) were responsible for 40 children between the ages of 8 and 14. It was our job to get them onto and off the bus, onto and off the mountain, and probably into and out of the emergency orthopedic clinic, although thank God it never came to that.

I felt considerable responsibility for all 40 of them, because I was the Head Chaperone, a position bestowed upon the parent with the highest qualifications; in other words, the parent whose name is randomly selected.

Anyway, during the orientation meeting, the Spokane Youth Sports Association organizer presented me with the precious lift tickets.

“Hand these out to the kids on the bus Sunday,” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “But why don’t you just hang on to them until we get on the bus?” “Me?” she said. “I’m not going to be there.”

This is when it first dawned on me. We chaperones were on our own.

We didn’t complain too much, because we were getting free lift tickets out of the deal. However, the burden of power weighed heavily upon me, so I didn’t ski that first week. I figured it would be a good idea for Mr. Head Chaperone to hang around the lodge in case any of the kids needed help.

Everything went fine until just after lunch. Then I noticed one of our 8-year-old charges standing all alone in the middle of the bunny slope. She had only one ski on. Her jester’s hat was askew. She was crying her eyes out.

“What’s wrong, hon?” I asked.

“I hate skiing,” she said, wracked with sobs. “I hate skiing. I hate skiing.”

“You’re not having fun?” I asked, making a wild guess.

“No.”

“Why don’t you come into the lodge for a while and keep me company?” I said.

She thought that sounded excellent. So Stacy (not her real name, although there should have been at least one Stacy on the trip) came inside and hung out with me.

Once she was warm and dry, she expounded on her objections to skiing.

“I keep falling down,” she said. “Then I can’t get up. The only way I can get up is to take off a ski. And then I can’t get it back on, and I fall down trying. This is not my sport.”

I knew exactly what she meant. Once, I told her, I became so tired and frustrated on the ski slope that I just stood there and cried and cried. That was two years ago.

So Stacy and I commiserated over skiing and chatted amiably about other subjects all afternoon. Stacy turned out to be a sparkling conversationalist, especially on the subject of dolls.

During the next two weekends, things went smoother. The kids got to be more comfortable on skis, and even Stacy learned to like skiing. So I was able to get out on the ski slopes and enjoy myself with the other chaperones.

Still, this chaperone job wasn’t cushy, especially at the end of the day when we tried to find everybody. Keeping track of 40 kids on a ski hill is like trying to organize a Siamese cat drill team. They’re always wandering off on their own missions.

And there were those minor crises of chaperoning: the 10-year-old kid who left his ski poles in the bar (don’t ask); the missing bathroom door handle on the bus; the kid who wanted to toss another kid out of the gondola.

All in all, it was a learning experience, which is code for “miserable, but in a positive way.” Seriously, I met some nice people, got in some skiing and learned a lot about dolls.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review